Quote - Well, a lot of high school kids of yesteryear were not actually high school kids. They were laborers, or signed up early for the military, or dropped out to take care of parents, or to look after younger siblings, etc., but I suppose that's really beside the point.

Yep.  It's beside the point.

Quote - Nor did they have to deal with all the pressures and stresses of rapid scientific, technological, political, racial, cultural, class, and social change, which stresses even adults, as we all know.

Ah -- OK.  I get it.  So the pressures of the Great Depression, a couple of world wars, the threat of the atomic bomb, and a few other suchlike minor incidents didn't have much bearing on those young people's lives back then, eh?  It's so-o-o-o-o-o-o much harder today -- with Xbox's and full cable TV + DVD players in every 8-year-old's room.  Tough life.

Those high schooler's of yore had things so much easier than kids do now. :ohmy:

Quote - They were also a smaller overall percentage of the population in most times, i.e., than we've had since the baby boom, and to some extent, more recently.

shrug  The angst of youth was ever thus.

Many popular Victorian novels focused upon the central character of a rebellious teenager.  Often a 17-year-old girl.

Quote - But high school shootings now apparently being the primary measure of all things bad and evil (for Xeno)

Nope.  It's just an example of something that happens now, which clearly did not happen back then.  There are other examples, too.  Like workplace shootings.  And restaurant mass shootings.  And shopping mall mass shootings.  And......well, you get the picture.  Or perhaps you don't.

Quote - plenty of horrendous crimes were committed, but because they were crimes of a different nature, like unreported and unpunished rapes, and unreported and unpunished wife and child beatings, and unreported and unpunished murders of blacks and homosexuals, etc., I suppose they didn't really happen and don't really count so far as you are concerned.

Oh, they happened all right.  Please see my response to you in regards to this same rhetorical ground above.  It might help to clarify things.

But just in case if you missed it, I'll state this again:  "facts" based upon assumptions are no facts at all.  You continue to make the spurious claim that gazillions of crimes were committed that we know nothing about -- in an attempt to make the well-known crimes of today seem less by comparison.  Prove it.  Prove that those hidden events actually happened in per capita numbers to compare to today's outrageous numbers.

You cannot logically make the assumptions that you have to make in order to "prove" such an unfounded point.  You can only guess, and imply, and suggest.  Not establish.

I can point to the ruins of ancient civilizations, and to well-known historical facts.  You are the one who is making assumptions.

Quote - I suppose this could go on and on as you have now accused me of not having an argument without actually having a particularly coherent or empirically supported one yourself, but obviously, as always, at least when it comes to Xeno, there is no point to any of this.

See above in response to this type of rhetoric.  Again.

Quote - In terms of how our modern moral decay may or not be worse or more pervasive than other times, I was not claiming to have the truth. For the most part, I have not even argued against many of the points and assumptions you are making. I don't claim to know that what I have offered is the explanation for anything. I was simply asking you, and others, to consider, and perhaps even examine and think about, some other possible explanations for some of what you so self-servingly (considering your political/social philosophy) assume, but I see that it is pointless ...

History is as history does.  I suppose that one could argue that the Roman empire never actually fell at all.......as you seemed to imply, at least in a measure, earlier.

Tell me -- when will the next Senatorial appointments be made?

Quote - And strangely, it is not all that rewarding to discuss this, or anything else, with someone who has so obviously and completely closed their mind. Who would have thought? Go figure.

Once again: a high mark for ironic humor.  Without any question, DQ is the master of irony.  Especially when he's attempting to be high-sounding with vacuous rhetoric.

Quote - And in any case, at the moment, I've much, much better things to do.

Like sleep. 

Something To Do At 3:00AM